Early Soft Machine

Jet-Propelled Photographs is the latest-available CD version of a title which has been repackaged and retitled several times over the last 30 years. Recorded in London in April 1967, and produced by the legendary Giorgio Gomelsky, these nine demos feature the original Soft Machine lineup of Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Mike Ratledge, and Daevid Allen. Although not intended for release, these rough but accomplished performances show the band at their most pop- and song-oriented. Not far removed from Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, the jazzy chord changes, unpredictable bursts of scat singing, glib free-association lyrics, ominous buzzing organ, and Robert Wyatt's soulful rasp convey the freewheeling abandon and giddy high spirits that characterized the best early British psychedelia.

Soft Machine - Seven (1973) {2013 Columbia Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD2 SICP 30167}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 279 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 101 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 45 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1973, 2013 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SICP-30167
Rock / Art Rock / Experimental / Jazz Rock

Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue from Soft Machine features the high-fidelity Blu-spec CD2 format (compatible with standard CD players). This series features the following albums: "Third," "Fourth," "Fifth," "Six," and "Seven." *Blu-spec CD2 is the next generation Compact Disc that employs the Phase Transition Mastering, the technology developed for mastering of Blu-ray discs, to further perfect the acclaimed characteristics of Blu-spec CD. Fully compatible with standard CD players, Blu-spec CD2 completely alters the experience of music.

Soft Machine - Third (1970) [2CD] {2013 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD2}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 678 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 274 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 197 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1970, 2013 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SICP-30162~3
Rock / Art Rock / British Psychedelia / Jazz Rock

Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue from Soft Machine features the high-fidelity Blu-spec CD2 format (compatible with standard CD players). Comes with a bonus disc. This series features the following albums: "Third," "Fourth," "Fifth," "Six," and "Seven." Blu-spec CD2 is the next generation Compact Disc that employs the Phase Transition Mastering, the technology developed for mastering of Blu-ray discs, to further perfect the acclaimed characteristics of Blu-spec CD. Fully compatible with standard CD players, Blu-spec CD2 completely alters the experience of music.

Soft Machine's revolving door of personnel changes continued with 1974's Seven, the last Softs album with a numbered title and also the last released by Columbia. Bassist Hugh Hopper was gone, replaced by Roy Babbington, a guest musician on 1971's Fourth who had played bass with Nucleus. Two other Nucleus alumni, keyboardist/reedman Karl Jenkins and drummer John Marshall, were on board as well, and since keyboardist/composer Mike Ratledge was now the band's only founding member (actually, Hopper wasn't an original member either, having replaced Kevin Ayers for Volume Two), the group's links to its early years seemed increasingly tenuous - and would become more so…

The sheer ubiquity of Soft Machine live recordings ensures that most fans look askance at any new arrivals to the collection. Too many poorly recorded, badly annotated, and, quite honestly, just plain boring CDs have crept out over the years - hey, is another one really necessary? In this case, yes. Somewhere in Soho was recorded during the band's residency at Ronnie Scott's in London in late April 1970, with the classic Softs lineup of Mike Ratledge, Hugh Hopper, and Robert Wyatt joined by saxophonist Elton Dean - the sole survivor from an earlier experiment with a brass section. The sound quality is not superb, but it's certainly eminently listenable, and the bandmembers themselves sound as relaxed as they ever could be, basically improvising around the contents of their second and third albums (Volume Two and Third) and taking some familiar material to fascinating places…

Soft Machine plunged deeper into jazz and contemporary electronic music on this pivotal release, which incited The Village Voice to call it a milestone achievement when it was released. It's a double album of stunning music, with each side devoted to one composition - two by Mike Ratledge, and one each by Hopper and Wyatt, with substantial help from a number of backup musicians, including Canterbury mainstays Elton Dean and Jimmy Hastings. The Ratledge songs come closest to fusion jazz, although this is fusion laced with tape loop effects and hypnotic, repetitive keyboard patterns. Hugh Hopper's "Facelift" recalls "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson, although it's more complex, with several quite dissimilar sections…

Back in the days before the Cuneiform and Voiceprint labels began issuing a host of archival Soft Machine music (including reasonably well-recorded live sets from the so-called "classic" period of the band), bootleg tapes - often live audience recordings of poor quality - circulated widely among Softs fans. One of those tapes was a mysterious "lost studio album" called Rubber Riff, and fans might be forgiven for enthusiastically seeking out a tape of this session, or at least displaying healthy curiosity about why Soft Machine would record an entire studio LP that would then sit on the shelf, hidden well away from public ears. Granted, the recording was made by a Soft Machine lineup from the group's mid-'70s "fusion" period, a band that practically no one viewed as "classic"…